Is my shower faucet installed correctly?

January 5, 2025 9:45 PM

I recently had my bathroom faucet switched from two knobs to one center handle. It seems to work OK, but it’s different from what I’m used to seeing. When the handle is at 6 o’clock, it’s off. At 5 it’s cold, at 3 it’s warm, and at 1 it is hot. At 12 o’clock it is off again, but if I keep going to 11 it’s comes back with pure hot water. Not sure why it would do that, or what it’s for. Does anyone else have something like this?
posted by bashos_frog to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

From what you are describing, it sounds as though hot is at the top, and cold is at the bottom.
Also, that you can go either left or right with the handle to get the same temperature. So the handle at three would be the same as the handle at nine.
And then vertically up or vertically down is the off position for the valve.

If the mechanism is purely mechanical, you may get some temperature fluctuations based on the way your hot water system works. And I'm not sure if you lift the handle away from the wall slightly to adjust the water pressure, that may also make a difference.

Once you become familiar with your preferred temperature (after the temperature has settled and evened out) you'll know what position on the clock dial is right for you (ie 2 or 10), so you would just move the handle to that position each time you want to shower.

But otherwise this sounds like a reasonably typical shower install to me.
posted by many-things at 10:39 PM on January 5

That does not sound correct to me.

Mine does not turn off at a dial position. Rather, you pull it out from the wall to turn it on and push it in to stop. No matter where you pull/push, it turns on/off.

Regarding temperature, 12 is equal hot/cold water. Rotating counter clockwise is hot and clockwise is cold. The further you turn in either direction the hotter or colder it gets. I have no idea if 6 is equal to 12 as I never go past 9 or 3 as the temperatures are too extreme. My normal shower takes place between 10 and 11, closer to 11.
posted by dobbs at 5:59 AM on January 6

That does sound weird and my first thought is that the wrong cartridge is in the faucet body. You didn't describe the process of "switching" from two handles to one but I expect this would be a pretty invasive bit of work with the full replacement of the faucet. I'd go back to whoever installed this.
posted by achrise at 7:52 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]

I have a shower faucet that has 6 o’clock be off, and it rotates counterclockwise and gets gradually warmer until it goes up and around to the 9 o’clock position, which is full hot. Typical shower temperatures are with the knob in the 12 or 11 o’clock position. So everything about your description sounds right except for shutting off at 12, that sounds wrong to me.

Just want to clarify, does your lever stop at 11 o’clock or is it capable of a full range of motion. If it did stop at 11, that would seem like a completely normal range of motion and again the shutting off at 12 is weird. If it is capable of a full range of motion, what happens if you start at 6 and go left, does it get gradually warmer as it goes up towards 12?
posted by cali59 at 9:32 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]

Mine is just like @cali59's, including the best shower temps. Your installer needs to take another look.
posted by XtineHutch at 9:45 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: To clarify - the full range of motion is from 6 o’clock, counter clockwise to 11 o’clock, and clockwise back. I do not have to pull it out or anything other than turn it.
The weird shut off at 12 is what confused me.
posted by bashos_frog at 2:31 PM on January 6

Best answer: Usually, the faucet handle's range of motion is limited by some external hardware, rather than the (relatively fragile) cartridge itself. Mostly, to take the abuse of being "slammed" on or off, instead of all that force being delivered to, and possibly breaking, the cartridge. If I had to guess, I would say that this limiting device is not properly aligned with the cartridge. Maybe that's part of the decorative cover, maybe it's something else, but there should be a way to properly align the cartridge to this limiter, and the handle.

Generally, with that type of faucet, the range of motion should be off -> cold -> warmer -> hot and it tops out at hot; you have to reverse it back through warm -> cold -> off to shut it back off. This prevents the faucet from being apparently "off" and delivering full-hot water on first crack, which could be dangerous.

If you paid someone to do this plumbing work, they should come back and correct the issue.
posted by xedrik at 4:41 PM on January 6